Congress Struggles to Stay Under Umbrella of Unity

Reverberations from last week’s terrorist attacks are not only rearranging Washington’s immediate priority list, but also reshaping the long-term political climate on debates as diverse as the budget, defense spending and immigration reform.

In Congress, both parties are shifting their focus toward issues such as an airline bailout and airport security while downplaying earlier concerns like creating a patients’ bill of rights.

The radically new environment has left both sides scrambling, but the upheaval is placing congressional Democrats in a particularly difficult position. They are reluctant to argue with President Bush about virtually anything during a national crisis, but they are equally reluctant to simply give him everything he wants on issues like spending or the internal security package the administration is preparing.

Beneath the broad promises of bipartisan cooperation, that concern is producing a subtle conflict between the parties: Republicans are pressing for quick action on an array of administration priorities, while Democrats are looking to defer decisions not essential to the immediate response.

“There is bipartisan agreement” about responding to the attacks, said Steve Elmendorf, chief of staff for House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.). “But that does not mean that everything else the administration wants for anything in the future is going to be defined as part of this project.”

Some high-ranking Democratic aides believe the contradictory desires to avoid either capitulation or confrontation with Bush may lead some in their party to push for an early congressional adjournment--an idea senior Republicans also are discussing.

But the contrasting desire to send a message of business-as-usual--not to mention mounting questions about airport security, the airline industry’s financial health and the government’s authority to investigate suspected terrorists--could keep Congress in session, and possibly in conflict, well into the fall.

Almost immediately, the attack altered the debate about the federal budget that had been poised to dominate Washington this fall. Through the late summer, leading Democrats such as Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) had demanded that Bush submit a new budget, in anticipation that Social Security taxes would be needed this year to fund other government operations.

But those demands disappeared with the attack. Based on current estimates, the $40 billion that Congress approved for disaster relief and increased security late last week guarantees the use of Social Security funds this year and next. Even so, Democrats such as Conrad, who had earlier resisted Bush’s request for an $18-billion increase in defense spending next year as a threat to the Social Security “lockbox,” now say the president will receive at least that much.

“With the attack on our country, everything changes,” Conrad said. “I think we all understand that our top obligation is to defend this country.”

But the two sides’ initial budget discussions last week make clear that not quite everything has changed. Congress’ one inescapable chore this fall is to pass the 13 basic appropriations bills that are required to keep the government operating after the start of the new fiscal year Oct. 1. So far, it’s completed work on none of them. Opinion on how to finish that work is subtly, but tellingly, diverging between the two parties in a way that reflects their broader differences about how to proceed.

Generally, Republicans want to quickly complete final action to set funding levels for all federal agencies for all of next year--either by proceeding through the 13 bills at an accelerated pace or possibly consolidating them into a single omnibus appropriations bill. But Democrats are concerned that either approach could give Bush too much leverage to shape the result, even on issues--such as education--not immediately related to the crisis. Their emerging preference is to pass a continuing resolution that would operate the government at existing funding levels for several weeks or months and delay final spending decisions.

A wild card in the fiscal debate is the possibility that legislators in both parties may propose further tax cuts to jump-start the economy. The key political question will be whether Congress finds it easier to dip into the Social Security trust fund to pay for more tax cuts now that it’s already picked the lockbox to pay for the immediate security and cleanup costs associated with the attack.

Conrad flashed another wild card when he said that while he would support using Social Security funds during this crisis, he would push for a guarantee that the government would, in effect, pay back what it borrows. That would require Washington to run a surplus later in the rest of its budget--and that could eventually demand reductions in both spending and future installments of the Bush tax cut approved last spring.

Beyond the appropriations bills, legislators in both parties remain uncertain how Congress will proceed this fall. But one point is clear: Almost all of the issues that had generated the most controversy and focus until last week’s attacks have been pushed to the side.

Aides in both parties say that formerly critical priorities such as campaign finance reform, the patients’ bill of rights and establishing a prescription drug benefit under Medicare are all now unlikely to be seriously considered until next year. The one exception to the pattern may be education reform, which has progressed to the point that a House-Senate conference committee is trying to resolve its final differences.

The immediate focus will be on concerns related directly to the attack, such as airport security, possible federal aid for the airline and insurance industries and legislation expanding law enforcement’s ability to monitor suspected terrorists. That latter legislation is likely to produce a dynamic similar to the budget--with Republicans pressing for quick action and many Democrats, concerned about possible infringements of civil liberties, looking to defer some final decisions. Analysts believe the attack could affect issues that at first appear unrelated, such as the push to provide legalized status for millions of illegal Mexicans immigrants working in the United States, and Bush’s hopes of redesigning the Social Security system.

A member of the reform commission that Bush has appointed said last week that the only reason the administration could even get a hearing for proposals to create individual investment accounts was because it could potentially fund them with the Social Security surplus. But if those funds are diverted to pay for a war on terrorism, the commission member noted, the difficult political odds for the plan grow even longer.

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Times staff writer Nick Anderson contributed to this story.